Why Magento 2.0 Should Excite Store Owners
Magento 2.0 was released last year, and while those in the development and service provider areas of the ecommerce industry have been talking a great deal about it, when it comes to store owners, the platform has been all but ignored. From the perspective of users, it seems as though Magento 1.9.x “works”, so they’re reluctant to go through the upheaval of rolling out a new platform.
This is unfortunate when you consider that Magento 2.0 offers a far more scalable store platform; performs faster across the board; and offers better security too. Lawrence Jones of UKFast explained his perspective on Magento in an interview with the Manchester Evening News, commenting that the platform has been designed from the ground up to maximise performance. It even uses streamlined HTML to save precious data transfer allowances for mobile users, and to improve rendering speed.
Upgrading is a significant undertaking, but it’s important to remember that Magento 2.0 has been out for five months already, and Magento 1.x’s support is set to be phased out over the next three years. This means that the developers are putting their focus on 2.x, and Magento 1.x users will see little beyond critical security updates over the next few years.
Three years may seem like a long time for those who are happy with the platform as is, but that time will pass quickly. Why not prepare now?
The question for ecommerce company owners is not whether they should upgrade, but when? Improving page loading times by half a second could be all it takes to give you a more than 20 percent increase in traffic, and the associated improvement in your bottom line. That alone makes it worth upgrading to the new platform. But not if it means that you’ll encounter bugs, missing extensions, and other issues.
Jones believes that it’s worth getting in early, and for those who have the time and resources to devote to building on the new platform that is probably true. He is just one of many executives and thought leaders speaking in support of the new platform, and his philosophy about achieving success in ecommerce is something that everyone can learn from.
Waiting could be the right option for your business, but don’t delay simply because you’re “happy where you are”. Start researching the new platform now, and planning your migration, because it will have to happen eventually.